Capital Table of Expected AACPS FY2016 Salary Above $75K

Anne Arundel County Public Schools employee salaries, $75,000 and up, Capital, October 22, 2015.

Snider Comment on the Limits of the Posted Data

If these data are for FY2016, as is stated, they are largely worthless because they are based on prospective rather than actual pay so only represent a baseline.  Of course, even then, no one should confuse total salary with total compensation–and getting most of the latter compensation data is illegal under Maryland law.   To provide at least a moderately realistic salary portrait, additional public fields such as FTEs (full-time-equivalents, a legally mandated measure of how much of the contractual year is worked) should be publicly disclosed.  For example, the public should be able to determine how widely reported “average” salary data are actually calculated; they shouldn’t have to rely on being spoon fed these statistics.  For a hint of the awful politics of AACPS employee compensation disclosure, see eLighthouse.info.  Doubt it?  Ask the AACPS Public Information Office for the compensation information in the payroll database that neither the Public Information Office nor any reputable public official will deny is public information under Maryland law. Good luck! I hope you have a thick skin.  Better yet, ask the AACPS Public Information Office to put this information online (as in “public = online”) so no one else ever again has to go through the horror of requesting it.

Capital Table of Expected AACPS FY2016 Salary Below $75K

Anne Arundel County Public Schools employee salaries, $75,000 and below, Capital, October 22, 2015.

Snider Comment on the Limits of the Posted Data (Oct. 30, 2015)

This table is mislabeled. Since it acknowledges it covers FY2016 (which ends NEXT June), it does not cover actual salaries, only prospective salaries, which in practice means it represents merely a salary baseline.  Anne Arundel County has 72 paycodes, but this table only includes a subset of them.  For example, bonuses, sick leave payouts, per diems, etc. are excluded.  Also, the data is going forward as of July 1, 2015.  That means the current negotiated settlement, which increased compensation RETROACTIVELY at the last Board of Education meeting, is excluded.  Take just one example of how this type of accounting can play out.  Superintendent Arlotto’s pay is shown as $245,000, which will likely be only a fraction of his end-of-year real pay, especially if accrual rather than cash accounting methods are used (governments use cash accounting for themselves but mandate that businesses use accrual accounting, which includes earned deferred compensation).  And, of course, even with accrual accounting such items as free car, computer, smartphone, etc. are excluded.  Those who read the Capital could get a little feel for how this can work out when it was reported that when former Superintendent Maxwell moved to Prince George’s County he got a cash payout of $90,000 for a small fraction of his unused sick leave (most of it he took to Prince George’s, which will be very helpful when he starts receiving his Maryland pension).  My estimate is that using accrual accounting methods, Arlotto earns well over $500,000 in annual compensation, which is more than twice what is reported here.